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Every suicide where the deceased had experienced domestic violence should be treated as a potential murder case, according to calls from campaigners who aim to make perpetrators responsible for the devastating impact of their behavior.

This move is necessary because police and prosecutors are not doing enough to hold offenders to justice in cases of suicide following family violence.

“In case after case, there is widespread breakdown, particularly within the criminal justice system, to examine these deaths with the seriousness they deserve,” remarked a leader of a advocacy organization at a significant meeting in London earlier this week.

The meeting, arranged by a organization running a “Self-Inflicted Death is Murder” campaign to fight for reform in the criminal justice system, united families who had lost loved ones to suicide following family violence.

Individual Accounts of Loss

Sharon Holland experienced the death of her child Chloe Holland in March 2023. Prior to her passing, the young woman had informed her former partner to police, submitting a lengthy recorded statement as evidence about his conduct.

After her death, the perpetrator was found guilty of coercive and controlling behavior and jailed for 41 months. He was subsequently jailed for an additional term after a another victim came forward to report that she had been in a violent and abusive relationship with him.

After Chloe’s death, the parent decided to campaign for a legal change to bring perpetrators to justice; yet she then discovered that regulations were existing, they just were rarely applied to achieve convictions.

“I concluded it wasn’t a new law I needed as current statutes were in place, and after learning how much my child had been let down before her taking her life by the police and many other agencies, they had to do their job properly, and things needed to change,” she said.

“Over 47 families have found me and only four of us have had a conviction,” she added. “I was astonished to see such a large number who have been battling the authorities and prosecution service for years and receiving no resolution for their child or sibling and didn’t have a voice in case it affected investigations that weren’t possibly going anywhere.”

Another Tragic Case

Saskia Lightburn Richie’s child her 30-year-old daughter died in May 2017, in what she called “the final act of violence” in a prolonged pattern of mistreatment.

“Hannah was vibrant, she was loving,” she said. “She had great potential, and she was an amazing, really loving mother to her kids, and she took her own life after 24 months in a relationship where she was systematically destroyed by her partner,” she said.

“She was physically beaten, she was mentally tormented, she was dominated and broken down piece by piece until she was unable to envision a way forward. The individual who did this to her walked free, because we label it self-inflicted death, we close the file and we move on.

“Yet I was unable to continue,” she remarked, “and I have not managed to let go. In truth, she didn’t just die by suicide. She was killed. Her death was gradual and intentionally over a two year period, and when I went to the police, when I begged them to look into what he had done to her, I was informed that there was no action that they could do.

“There was no investigation into her death. The domestic violence fatality analysis, which I had to struggle to obtain, required five years and changed nothing. A lengthy coroner’s hearing determined death by suicide, notwithstanding huge evidence over a extremely distressing four day period of family violence and failings by multiple services.”

The mother told the meeting that for a decade she has “struggled against a system that refuses to see what is right in front of it”.

She emphasized the self-inflicted death is murder campaign was vital “because when someone dies by suicide after they’ve suffered family violence, we have to examine it for what it really is, which is murder.

“We need to apply the laws we already possess effectively and it is not occurring at the moment, and we need to hold abusers accountable for pushing their targets to suicide.

“We have the laws. We require determination, we need law enforcement to conduct thorough inquiries. We need the prosecution authority to take legal action. We need the judiciary to understand that verbal abuse and manipulation can cause death just as much as hands and weapons.”

Government Reaction

At a second meeting in the House of Commons, chaired by a Labour MP, and attended by the government official, the bereaved relatives again told their stories.

A junior minister told the meeting: “These deaths are often dismissed as if they were their own choice, they chose to do this, when, in truth, these were the result of actually, another person’s abuse, and these are not rare incidents.”

“The legal system is flawed, we are aware,” she stated. “Particularly around murder or manslaughter, it is fragmented. It lacks statutory basis regardless, it has been shaped with traditional legal customs for centuries, and it is no longer fit for purpose, honestly, given the society we currently live in.

“I’m not going to pretend that it’s going to be easy to fix. It is extremely complicated and difficult, especially when you look at the issue of homicide, but we acknowledge that it requires examination.”

Prosecution Service Statement

A representative for the legal body commented: “Domestic abuse is a heinous crime and our prosecutors are actively advised to consider murder and manslaughter charges in suicide cases where there is a known context of family violence or other manipulative conduct.

“We have in the past prosecuted a several individuals for leading to the fatality of a companion they abused, encompassing in cases which are currently active.

“We are collaborating with police and other stakeholders to guarantee these kinds of offences are well-understood – so that we can bring perpetrators to justice for the full extent of their crimes.”